


the devil you know

by Kasuchi



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasuchi/pseuds/Kasuchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>She looks both ways before kissing him on the sidewalk.</em> Jake has a suspicion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the devil you know

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to **romantic--stylez** for her quickie pre-read :) 
> 
> This is a post-ep / episode tag for "The Mattress" (2x07) but is otherwise spoiler-free. Takes place before (and likely Jossed by) 'Ava' and 'The Swedes'.
> 
> Theme song for this fic is "Fools" by Troye Sivan.

The thing is, it's all the little things. 

He'd never expected -- well, okay, maybe he's _hoped_ \-- she'd be a bit more affectionate in front of their coworkers or whatever, but that wasn't a deal breaker. It's just, when they go out to drinks, she keeps both hands folded on top of the table, fingers trailing along the rim of her cocktail glass while his own palm chills against the bottle of beer. He considers holding her hand, covering it with his own, but then she moves them out of reach and the moment passes.

She looks both ways before kissing him on the sidewalk, in front of God and everyone, and he kisses her back without hesitation, his whole body leaning into the kiss. And when they part, her cheeks are flushed and her lashes flutter down, but he still sees her scope out the street to see if anyone is watching. 

They go out to dinner, bars with menus printed on cardstock and with two dozen taps lining the walls. He orders a burger and fries and hears her disapproving pout before he sees it. She gets a salad and steals half his fries and he doesn't complain ( _much_ ) and when he licks the ketchup from the corner of her mouth, she laughs and still dabs at it with a napkin. 

She lets go of his hand when they bump into someone she knows from high school. His Spanish is garbage, but even he knows the difference between _amigo_ and _novio_ , and she's definitely using the first one when she talks to her aunt. He sees the text from her mom about setting Amy up with a nice young man she knows through people she met at church while volunteering, and Jake has to swallow his anger, hot and sharp very suddenly. He turns over the phone and wanders into the kitchen to distract himself. 

It's the little things, the way they don't go see the documentary she mentioned was playing at the Angelika, or the fancy restaurant she pointed to, the one she admitted to liking. It's how her eyebrows practically disappear into her hairline when he gets way too invested in Westeros politics and shushes her during True Detective. It's that same instinct that pulls together all the details in a case and presents a solution that the evidence supports shouting at him right now: 

She's ashamed to be dating him. 

Which: ouch.

* * *

He buys the mattress after they book the supplier, sign all the paperwork (Amy having no less than _triple-checked_ his spelling, which is both hilarious and sad) and clock out with Holt. They're holding hands back to her place, where they make out on her couch and eat pizza that she ordered ("It has to have at least two vegetables, Jake, and pineapple on the Hawaiian pizza does _not count_ , since I know you'll just pull it off anyway.") and beer that they picked up from the bodega on her corner. 

They're watching Taken and sprawled out on her sofa, his fingers running nonsense looping patterns on her arm. Liam Neeson is onscreen taking out anonymous men in some unnamed quasi-Eastern European country. She sighs, content and satisfied, three pizza crusts bent in L-shapes on her plate, and curls into his side, the weight of her head heavy on his ribs. Gingerly, Jake puts the half-empty bottle on the floor out of range of his feet, lowers the volume of the movie, and moves his hand from her arm to simply rest on her hip. 

The rest of the movie passes in a blur of warm skin and deep breaths, and part of Jake wonders what it would be like to have this all the time. He stops himself from asking about _forever_.

* * *

They go to some horrible, loud, humid bar that Amy is recommended by 'a friend' (it's Kylie, she really should just admit it) and they pay too much for drinks and push their way onto the dancefloor. 

Jake feels sweaty in seconds, his sensible-for-the-winter-outside longsleeve plaid over a t-shirt taking him from comfortable to drenched faster than a shower would have. Amy's neck has hair sticking to it in moments, her long-sleeved off-the-shoulder dress leaving her skin exposed. 

They dance. Amy is an arrhythmic mess, until Jake pulls her against him, back to front, and sways in time to the music, hips pressed against each other. He splays his hand over her abdomen, presses a kiss into the salt-bitter crook of her neck, and _feels_ more than hears her approval. She tilts her head and they kiss, hot and a little lewd, in the middle of a crowd of strangers. 

When they pull apart, she looks at him with a dark gaze, two bright spots of light from the DJ booth reflecting off her pupils, and Jake feels _seen_ by her in a way that he hadn't realized he'd missed until that exact moment. She takes his hand and leads him out of the bar, into a car, up the stairs into her apartment.

That night, Jake licks a path from her navel to the hollow of her throat, and the sight of her undone is one he tries to savor.

* * *

The problem is that Jake doesn't have to try too hard to picture what 'five-years-later' looks like. 

The problem is that Jake is pretty sure Amy's avoiding that question.

* * *

Amy calls her mother, as promised, and Jake tries not to hover, he really does. 

He settles for sitting, cross-legged, on the kitchen floor, listening as she haltingly tells her mom to cancel the date with Gary or whatever, because she's dating Jake. Listens to her pause and say, "Yes, _that_ Jake." Listens to Amy apologize for keeping secrets, listens to her say, "Yeah, I am. He's...it's like he's what I've been missing." 

When she gets off the phone, he hears her pad into the kitchen, flannel pajama bottoms swishing against the tile. His head tilts back against the kitchen cabinet to meet her gaze. "How'd it go?" he asks mildly, mouth tilting up. 

She falls to her knees, then straddles him, bracing her hands on his shoulders. "My mother knows I have a boyfriend." He barely lets her finish the last word before kissing her, fingers in her hair and tongue pressed against hers. When they break, she's breathing hard and her mouth is rosy. "No complaining once she starts asking when we're getting married. Every week." 

Jake nods and bites his tongue.


End file.
